Sunday, March 30, 2014

I hadn't been paying attention, but thanks to Twitter I found out there's a total lunar eclipse coming up April 14-15. For those of us on the East Coast, it'll start in the early early morning, and end at about sunrise, but the good stuff should still take place in the dark. I'll put in an early order for clear skies, which haven't been common thus far this unusual spring.

I decided to see what South American had in the way of lighthouses this week. When I searched for South America lighthouses, one of them dominated the pictures.

That lighthouse is Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse (Wikipedia), in the Beagle Channel, near Ushuaia, Argentina. It is called by some the Lighthouse at the End of the World, though that moniker from Jules Verne actually belongs to another lighthouse. Nevertheless, the Ushuaia light is apparently seen a lot and photographed a lot. Thus, there are lots of pictures of it, and it's easy to search on and appreciate. The classic view is with snow-covered mountains behind it.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Soccer/football is indeed a game where sometimes, the lesser bests the greater. And that was the case on Saturday, March 29, when Crystal Palace defeated Chelsea 1-0 on an own goal header by John Terry. Crystal Palace played very well and deserved the victory, with a save on a point blank shot by Speroni and a shot off the post by Jerome.

The team now is five points ahead of Cardiff City, the current top team in the relegation zone of the Barclays Premier League.

Manchester City couldn't capitalize, gaining only a point due to a 1-1 draw with Arsenal.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright (her betrothed) went to the beach in Dubai.

Both of them have what it takes to make the other gender take notice of their physical attractiveness.

Since I'm male, I'm noticing Michelle. But I'm also noticing how Mark gets up close and physical, frequently (smart guy) and thinking a) I wish I looked like him, b) I wish I could do what he was doing, and c) don't screw this up, bloke.

If they'd been paying attention, Playboy could've gotten the luscious Michelle Keegan to pose nude for them when she first started acting on the Brit soap Coronation Street. As she says herself: "When I first started on Corrie, I'd have said yes to Playboy. And now? Never say never, and it can look classy, but it's the whole thing of sitting there thinking, 'I'm actually naked'.

"Louisiana
isn’t the only state where Republicans are preventing thousands of
low-income Americans from receiving health care. In Virginia, where
state lawmakers refuse to expand Medicaid, hospitals will face higher
costs and reduced services as a result. One million Texans will be
denied access to coverage if the state continues to reject the Medicaid
expansion. Meanwhile, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is willing to leave
300,000 of his neediest citizens uninsured. His reasoning? He’s afraid
that the law might be repealed, leaving his state no way to meet its
commitments — an ironic stance for a Republican to take, since they’re
the ones trying to repeal it!

The 19 states that are refusing to expand Medicaid aren’t just
leaving low-income Americans out to dry — they’re also leaving billions
of health-care dollars on the table. While Bobby Jindal busies himself
over a billboard, his state’s internal analysis found that Medicaid
expansion would save Louisiana as much as $134 million in 2015 alone.

The real cost of Republican cruelty, however, cannot be measured in
dollars and cents, but in people’s lives. Researchers at Harvard and the
City University of New York concluded that without the Medicaid
expansion, individuals will go without checkups, cancer screenings and
treatment for diseases such as diabetes and depression — leading to
thousands of premature and preventable deaths."

"The risks of
El Niño are numerous, including increased drought and fire risk in
India and Australasia, diminished food production in the Asia-Pacific
region with potential ramifications throughout the global marketplace, a
potential increase for severe Pacific storms (look no further than the
devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan last year to gauge potential
implications), to a very unwelcome potential setback in Africa’s Sahel
food security situation.

In addition, based on research led by Solomon Hsiang and published
in the journal Nature, a positive correlation can be drawn across the
globe’s tropics correlating increases in conflict in nations impacted by
El Niño."

A group of Wyoming educators last year urged state officials to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards, but, the Casper Star-Tribune reported,
Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican who doesn’t believe climate change is
caused by human activity [what a surprise], recently approved a last-minute footnote to
the budget introduced by legislators including Republican Rep. Matt
Teeters, who was quoted as saying:“[The standards] handle global warming as settled
science. There’s all kind of social implications involved in that that I
don’t think would be good for Wyoming.”

Kansas is most likely to be next to do this; if not them, Texas.

Ugh. I thought teaching science was about teaching facts. Climate change, due to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is a fact.

I've praised British songstress and TV personality Cheryl Cole (X-Factor, which she's back on in Britain after making nice with Simon Cowell and a couple million from the ill-fated venture in the US) for her talent and looks many times. And I always wished that she and admirer Derek Hough got together for more than a dance or two. And I think I noted her courage in battling through a real bad bout (near-death situation) of malaria a couple of years ago, which fortunately she recovered from.

Well, in support of Sport Relief, a British charity show with sports personalities (apparently) that raises money for the poor in the UK and abroad, Cheryl is talking about her personal malaria struggle and urging contributions to Sport Relief. Hopefully some of those contributions will go for malaria nets, as she suggests.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

"By one analysis, 5.2 million Americans who could have gotten Medicaid if their states had accepted the expansion will remain uninsured. And if you asked those people in a poll whether Obamacare had helped them, they’d quite reasonably say no.
For all its complications and the difficulty of implementation, the ACA has already done an extraordinary amount of good for those millions of people.

If Republicans took their newfound concern for (some) people’s access to health care and used it to actually work to make the law work as well as possible, millions more might be helped as well. If only."

Today’s Republican Party is not “conservative” by any reasonable definition of the word. It is a radical party seeking to dramatically alter the social compact by which we have lived for decades.
Republicans, if they could, would slash Social Security benefits and turn Medicare into a voucher program. They, not Democrats, are the ones who threaten the safety net for seniors.

Republicans refuse to invest in our decaying infrastructure. They want to do away with government regulation that has given us cleaner air, healthier food, safer workplaces. They seek ultimate control over women’s reproductive rights and have already made it oppressively difficult to terminate a pregnancy in many states. Instead of comprehensive immigration reform, they propose “self-deportation.”

"See the difference? The senators accept that the ACA is law and are thinking about how they’d like to change it. The House members are coming up with another way to make a futile, symbolic shaking of their fists in the general direction of the White House. And this may offer a clue to how legislating would proceed in a Republican Congress. The House, still dominated by extremely conservative Republicans for whom any hint of compromise is considered the highest treason, could continue to pass one doomed bill after another, while the Senate tries to write bills that have at least some chance of ever becoming law."

Went to Lake Ontario for this one, which has been here for awhile, back to 1822 in fact. This is the Charlotte-Genesee light at the mouth of the Genesee River (near Rochester). I like the stonework on this one.

OK, apparently I really was inspired this morning (in more ways than one) because this is truly one of the best erotic sonnets I have written. I hope you'll enjoy it too.

unsuppressed

Because I dreamed of you, when I awokeI sensed my nocturne's reveries were nowtranslated to an overture, an acheof stark desire, the sprit upon my bow,distinguished by its personality --a singleness of purpose and intentwhich in the morning's mirrored clarityexpresses all that you fulfill, unbent and unabashed, remembering how youaccept my comicality as we connect ecstatically and we renewthe physicality of love, so freethat I can be what I can see, exceptwithin you I express my profuse debt.

Friday, March 14, 2014

After ending her couple of year relationship with George Clooney, weapon of mass seduction (I borrowed that) Stacy Keibler started a romantic relationship with Jared Pobre, who had previously been a "friend".

They went on vacation to Mexico with friends, and surprised the friends by getting married.

And a few days later they announced that Jared had definitely reaped the benefits of upping the friendship stakes into the romance zone, because he and Stacy had accomplished the act of conception, and I'm sure y'all know how that got done.

Congrats. (And snif snif snif...)

And I think we're entitled to think just briefly about what their romantic relationship might be like where it counts. From the lucky guy's viewpoint.

How often do you land a working mobile scientific robot on another planet?

Hmm... I said another planet. The Moon doesn't count. So, if we count little Sojourner on Mars, I count 1... 2... 3... 4. That's it, 4.

Two of those four are still working, still gathering data, still providing views with every few meters that are a new perspective that has NEVER been seen before. Ever.

And now, due to budgetary pressure, NASA is suggesting that they'll shut down the longevity hero Opportunity in a year or so.

To put it very simply: THAT'S NUTS.

Now, I bet they are all hoping that Oppy is going to shut down by itself sooner than that, so that the decision gets taken out of their hands. And that might happen. But it might not.

So seriously, how could anyone shut down a massively unique scientific platform like a moving, inquiring robot on Mars until it is totally and utterly done?

I'm hoping that this is a shot across the bow to get the attention of Congress that this is crazy. But this is a Congress that first passed and then lived with the sequester, and some Republican nutcases actually like it. So nothing is certain. But a working robot on another planet? C'mon. It is the height of poor decision-making to make an awful decision like that.

Don't do it, NASA. Shuffle some money around, find a more efficient way to manage Oppy's activities, but let it go as long as it is able.

There is some buzz about an El Nino taking place this year. When you read the discussion, it is CERTAINLY not a sure thing. See below.

"The model predictions of ENSO for
this summer and beyond are relatively unchanged from last month. Almost
all the models indicate that ENSO-neutral (Niño-3.4 index between -0.5oC and 0.5oC) will persist through the rest of the Northern Hemisphere spring 2014 (Fig. 6).
While all models predict warming in the tropical Pacific, there is
considerable uncertainty as to whether El Niño will develop during the
summer or fall. If westerly winds continue to emerge in the western
equatorial Pacific, the development of El Niño would become more likely.
However, the lower forecast skill during the spring and overall
propensity for cooler conditions over the last decade still justify
significant probabilities for ENSO-neutral. The consensus forecast is
for ENSO-neutral to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring
2014, with about a 50% chance of El Niño developing during the summer or
fall (click CPC/IRI consensus forecast for the chance of each outcome)."

How's that for not going out on a limb? Undangerous to the max.

But the interesting thing right now is that the east side of the Pacific is definitely warming up. See the animation below. Watch what happens off Central America right at the end of the period.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

A few years ago I believed that cellulosic ethanol would be the major biofuel in the world. I no longer think that, mainly because it seems like it's a lot easier to make biofuel from algae.

But, as I noted above, there is a LOT of waste biomass in the world. Algae biofuel requires large areas of water to grow the algae. Waste agricultural / plant biomass is EVERYWHERE. If the conversion process could be made cost-competitive with other biofuel types and sources, I think that it would be viable and useful. When I think about all the leaves that fall off suburban deciduous trees and end up in landfills, it makes me shudder how much SOLAR energy is being wasted (after all, those leaves grew due to photosynthesis, right?)

The article I found and have linked here describes where the cellulosic ethanol industry is at present. Three U.S. plants are going to open this year. Funding and time will be important to get these to full capacity and demonstrate that this technology can make a contribution.

Then, the next step, is to turn food waste into biofuel. Because there's a lot of that, too.

Figure skating is, when done at the highest level, graceful, elegant, and artistic. At the same time, what we don't see, when performed by the best figure skaters, is the effort and athleticism underlying that grace and elegance.

But figure skaters are very fit. And when you combine grace and beauty and fitness, you get a really nice package. Lovely Katarina Witt actually demonstrate the fullness of this package when she posed nude for Playboy a few years ago (and the pictures are easy to find).

Subject of this post is Tessa Virtue, half of the gold medal winning ice dancing pair (with Scott Moir) four years ago, and silver medalists this time in Sochi. According to some sources, Tessa is the most Google Olympian in Canada. This apparently includes Sidney Crosby, and indicates that there are many more guys Googling a hot female figure skater than one of the best hockey players in the world and a national sports hero. Of course, it could be argued that Tessa is a national sports hero too, but I don't think that's why most of the guys are searching for her.

Now, she's beautiful, graceful, and elegant on the ice when ice dancing with Moir. And she makes it look easy. But a bit of searching revealed the body underlying the beauty, and particularly the flat and sculptured abs that I find particularly appealing. When you find a women with a center line on her torso, that's a woman I appreciate. Absolutely (sorry, had to).

Oh, if you follow the Twitter feeds I follow, I'm sure you saw some mention of this, but it's IMPORTANT. It is a question that has been a subject of inquiry, conjecture, and experimentation for literally centuries. (Well, maybe not in the laboratory.)

There are two different kinds of female orgasm.

One kind results from external clitoral stimulation. The other kind results from vaginal penetration.

Here's the article. It is NOT illustrated, you perverts. But it does describe the experimental methodology IN DETAIL.

The cast for the next "Dancing with the Stars" (which won't have glorious Brooke Burke as a co-host, unfortunately) has some interesting choices. A pesky hockey player, two Olympic ice dancing gold medalists competing against each other, a paraOlympian, Billy Dee Williams, Drew Carey, Diana Nyad -- it definitely has diversity.

But unfortunately what it won't have is Tyne Stecklein. I thought she was the heiress-apparent to the Julianne Hough hotness title, even despite an early exit with Bill Nye the Science Guy. But she is not included in this season's cast. I hope that there's still a chance she'll be back. Perky and curvy Witney Carson could be fun to watch in her place.

As for the likely winners, I have to go with the gold medalists, Charlie White and Meryl Davis. They know how to do practically every dance move, they know how to put flair on every move, and they are fit athletes. DWTS would salivate over having them be the final pairing for the mirror ball. (More on the fitness aspect in the next post.) After that, it's hard to tell. I'll go with Danica McKellar and Candace Cameron Bure to get into the later weeks, along with the wild card, Sean Avery.

As if we haven't got enough assaults on the natural environment to worry about, in California now they are arresting guys for poaching burl off live redwood trees. They do that because the burl can be made into fancy wood items. I promise I won't ever own one.

The article has quite a bit of good info about why this is not good for the redwoods. Notably, burl is important for redwood reproduction.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Crystal Palace lost a game in which Southampton dominated possession 1-0, but the goal was somewhat fluky on a breakaway that the goalkeeper almost made a fabulous save on. Unfortunately the ball got through and Jay Rodriguez was able to nudge it forward into a goalward roll that made it.

Next up for Crystal Palace next week is Sunderland, below them in the Barclay's Premier League standings. Thus a really critical three points are on the line, since they are now only two points ahead of Cardiff City and West Bromwich Albion, tied at 25 but WBA is placed ahead of Cardiff City.

Azita Ghanizada on a bicycle, from Maxim. Now, it is doubtful that safety experts would recommend riding without a helmet and in high heels, let alone in an eye-grabbing outfit like this (of which I wish there were many more shots and angles). Love the hair and eyes in that look, too.

I noted on Twitter that riding in this outfit would also cause many distracted-driver accidents, as well. To which Azita replied, quote, "ha". I'm glad I got her attention, because she certainly got MINE.

Azita also visited Esquire's "Me in My Place". I recommend looking it up. I hope she gets a new acting job soon, because she's worth watching.

This week's lighthouse is the classic at Cape May, New Jersey, which has likely been seen by millions of people. Attesting to that are the numerous pictures of it. So for slight variety, two sunset shots. The link goes to a beautiful morning shot that could be purchased and framed.

There's no doubt that Miranda Kerr combines cuteness and hotness into one remarkably desirable package. Despite her marriage to Orlando Bloom not going the distance, there's not much else to complain about -- apparently one of the main marriage complaints was that she was just too busy. If that was the main thing then maybe she should have slowed down, but it's hard not to be busy when you are extremely popular and extremely in demand. Maybe they just shouldn't have gotten married when she got pregnant, though maybe Orlando wanted a baby with his name.

Anyway, Miranda has moved on from her Victoria's Secret days and is now the very appropriate representative for Wonderbra. This will provide something to look forward to for a couple of years.

Friday, March 7, 2014

I'm going to come back to this (and I have a couple of other symphonically related items to share), but I was trying to evaluate who are the current best conductors around the world. Here are a few names that I came up with. In a subsequent post I'll try to come up with a top five.

"Theory 4: They’re unable to grasp the big picture
Just
as they can take one cold day and say it contradicts the decades-long,
global pattern of climate change, climate deniers are constantly
prioritizing the here-and-now over the future. How else to explain why
Newt Gingrich found it so hard to understand why John Kerry would call
climate change “the greatest challenge of our generation”? Kerry’s claim
actually threw the former House speaker into the Twitter equivalent of a nervous breakdown:

We saw the same thing recently on Fox News, which used plenty of snowy
footage to emphasize the ridiculousness of Obama spending money now to combat a problem that will only “maybe” affect us later:"

The other four are:Theory 1: They don’t understand scienceTheory 2: Big industry is pulling their stringsTheory 3: Deniers hate regulations, and they really hate the EPATheory 5: They just don’t want to believe it

Now, according to Chris Mooney and "The Republican Brain on Science", and a lot of supporting psychological research, it's not just that they don't want to believe it, it's that they can't believe it. For to do so would destabilize their entire cognitive framework and the groupthink by which they establish and sustain their own personal value within the value system of a larger group, in this case Republican Conservatives.

In a few previous posts, I've praised Aaron Paul's new wife, Lauren Parsekian (here and also here). I wondered when the Hollywood press and tabloids would catch on.

Well, when you wear a semi-revealing dress to your husband's movie premiere, at least the Daily Mail will notice, as they did here. And the Huffington Post saw that article and ran with it, right here.

I say, that dress was worth all the shots it got.

We can only anticipate more red carpet appearances for Aaron's movies. Something to look forward to.

We'll see if it has any impact. In a very populous nation, it may be mostly ignored. But given the heated discussions going on in China about their environmental crisis, it might influence some opinions.

Just about everybody who knows about astronomy, specifically in the category of Solar System planets, knows that there are big volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io. The volcanoes were discovered because of a big plume of sulfurous spew that was spied in a Voyager image. So when the New Horizons satellite stopped by Jupiter on its way to Pluto, it took a look at Io, and saw more volcanic plumes arching high into the Jovian sky.

A five-frame "movie", repeated over and over, shows the volcanic plume over Io. There are certainly strange places in the Solar System, and Io is one of the strangest.

Monday, March 3, 2014

This week's lighthouse is in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, on the island of Ishigaki. It's actually pretty close to the island of Taiwan. It overlooks clear, tropical waters, and has a plaque in Japanese on the walk to the light.

Rihanna wore a garment to a party recently that displayed her feminine assets with only a bare smidge of covering, like a net.

The garment can be seen in the following article, without censoring (which has happened at many other media outlets). I mean, what's the controversy if there aren't any pictures to verify it and help determine the reactions of the participants.

I succumbed to all the publicity surrounding Sandra Bullock's performance in "Gravity", and paid too little attention to the late-year buzz around Cate Blanchett's star turn in "Blue Jasmine". But once I'd made the Undangerous Prediction, I couldn't back off, even as Cate started taking home all the trophies. So by the time the Oscars arrived, I had consigned myself to not getting that prediction right. In retrospect, the mortal locks at the Oscars were "Frozen" for Best Animated Feature Film and Alfonso Cuaron for Best Director. (And Kate Hudson for Sexiest Presenter Dress, and Kate Beckinsale for Sexiest Woman at the Parties (for the latter, check this out). She had serious competition from Miranda Kerr.

Beckinsale

Kerr

Looking ahead, the next undangerous prediction with a deadline is the World Cup and my unfortunate hope-I'm-wrong prediction that the U.S. National Men's Soccer Team won't get out of the group play into the elimination rounds. Now, an 8+ earthquake could happen any time, and Hilary Clinton could declare that she'll seek the presidency anytime. But other than that, I can relax for a few months on the prediction front.

I do not know if there will sometime beanother way - a diff'rent sight and touch,an altered sound, a new approach, a sharedexperience of learning, though there's muchwe would already know - the basics, paireddesires and mutual intentions, freeof history and tales of sorrow, whichcan color those who know each other well.The newness is excitement, unexpect-ed flesh and fresh expression as a spellof temporary thrall makes us connectthrough love's ingrained affections, as we twitchand shake and quake in our ecstatic throes,the secret splendor our infection knows.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Well, checking in on the Crystal Palace, they got a point for a tie, 1-1 with Swansea City, on a late penalty kick. So they are currently 3 points ahead of Sunderland (which is on top of the relegation zone), a point behind Norwich and two points behind Swansea City, with Southampton and Sunderland coming up next. The Sunderland match will be critical, but a win over Southampton would be most welcome. Sunderland has a week off next week before facing Crystal Palace, which is why an extra point or three againts the Southampton Saints would be very useful.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Interesting article about bi-lobed Trojan asteroid Hektor, which apparently is orbited by a much smaller asteroid moonlet, and apparently will be orbited by said moonlet for a long, long time. The article describes how the authors determined that the orbit of this moonlet around Hektor is very stable.

What it also says is that you can send ideas for the name of the unnamed moon to the authors. The writer of the article had an idea for a name; see below.

"Eight years after its discovery, Hektor’s moon remains nameless and
Marchis and his team will consider any nomination from the public. If I
had to make a suggestion, I’d vote for the name Astyanax, the son of
Hector, Crown Prince of Troy and Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe" (followed by this note: "NOTE: There is, in fact, an asteroid named 1871 Astyanax, another
Trojan asteroid. But my nomination still stands for Astyanax, little
moon of Hektor. The IAU may need some convincing, however.")

In an article in the Daily Mail, British soap star Kym Marsh had a confession about fellow British soap star and ready for world domination unbelievably gorgeous hottie Michelle Keegan.

The recently on-the-outs with her husband Marsh said, "I find myself staring at her with my mouth open. I have to go, stop it."
There are a whole lot of other human beings (admittedly, most of them men) who do the same thing, with the exception of saying to themselves "stop it". I mean, why do we have to? Why would we even WANT to?
How is it even possible to stop?

On March 2 (which is like almost now), Crystal Palace will play Swansea City. In the Barclays :Premier League, Crystal Palace has 26 points, Swansea City has 28 points, and the team with the most points in the relegation zone (the bottom zone), is Sunderland, with 24. So with a win, Crystal Palace will move ahead of Swansea City and the other teams with 28 (of which there are two others, Norwich City and Aston Villa), which puts it in a considerably better position. With a loss, they'll still be only two points out of the going-back-to-the-lower-tier zone.